IKAM: THE RULES

A couple years back Grant Robinson, Jon Matlock and I put together a small magazine. We all needed an outlet for ideas, an aesthetic, and philosophy that wouldn’t fit anywhere else in mountain bike magazines.

We didn’t really care to make a mountain bike magazine or even a mountain bike magazine. We produced one issue and since then we’ve been toying with what to produce next. We decided that IKAM wasn’t about creating a template and following form each month, quarter or year. It doesn’t matter if it’s a magazine, a logo scrawled onto a wall, or a word whispered between friends. The meaning, to us at least, transcends the medium.

Anyway, before the magazine was released we agreed upon these ruling principals.

This we promise to ourselves,

Each issue (if we get past the first) should be relevant whether someone reads it today, tomorrow or yesterday.

It might be cheap and flimsy but the contents must be cogent, compelling and strong.

We must be honest, not only with the subject matter and the constituents of our readership, but with ourselves. We must not let self-importance or an inflated sense of worth cloud our judgement, both of the content and our legitimacy to operate this medium.

We will always work within our means. If we ship an issue it’s because we are proud of what we to put out. If it’s not ready, we will wait. Maybe they’ll only be one…

We must not allow IKAM to be a conduit for conspicuous consumption. We are the audience as much as the producers, as such we must provide to the readers rather than cater to the market.

We will be wrong, we will have errors, we will make mistakes. This is a human magazine cut by hand and as such is a reflection of the humanity that a pastime like bikes has provided for us. Much like the logger must use a careful eye and powerful strikes to fall his tree, we aren’t attempting to make something so perfect that we fail to harvest the good wood.

This is an oath to ourselves. The moment we fail to achieve these things then we must recognize that we have been made lame and pull the plug.